David Jenkins speaks to the Czech maestro about his brilliant new film, 'Surviving Life'.
This week’s new release ‘Surviving Life’ is a partially animated film about an office worker who embarks on a search for the woman of his dreams. It’s written and directed by 77-year-old Jan Švankmajer, the prodigious Czech iconoclast who dazzled with short films like ‘The Flat’ (1968) and the stop-motion masterpiece, ‘Dimensions of Dialogue’ (1983). He later moved into feature filmmaking and is known for eccentric modern classics like ‘Alice’ (1988) and ‘Little Otik’ (2000).
Are your dreams as vigorous and vivid as when you were younger?
‘Certainly, they are. If Sigmund Freud is right and dreams make our most secret wishes come true, then, as we get older, our wishes gain intensity in proportion to how our energy decreases in real life.’
How did the idea for ‘Surviving Life’ evolve?
‘There was a particular dream of mine at the beginning. The entire story is only a development and interpretation of that dream.’
Why have you personally presented the prologue to your recent films?
‘If books can have an author’s foreword, why can’t a film? It certainly does not originate in some ungratified narcissism. And, maybe, when the viewer is given the chance to see what the author looks like and can possibly learn some of the author’s views, he may gain more confidence in the meaningfulness of the film.’
You say in your introduction that there’s no money in dreams.
‘In the introduction, I say that people do not take their dreams seriously because they cannot make money in this part of their lives. It is undoubtedly an attack against the current utilitarian-economic civilisation that pushes a person towards uncontrolled consumption. This civilisation works against the neolithic nature of contemporary man. In fact, the latest discoveries of neuropathology show that the evolution of man does not progress as fast as we thought. There is no homo economicus. Man is still an irrational, magical and unpredictable creature, the same way he was in the neolithic era.’
Do you see your films as having elements of autobiography?
‘Every authentic creative work is autobiographical to a certain extent. What do you want to derive material for your creative work from if not from your life: from your childhood, dreams and eroticism? These are the sources of every creative work. And, to be balancing on the edge of the grotesque and horror is reality itself.’
Do you still find filmmaking and animating satisfying?
‘I have never considered myself to be exclusively a director of animated or feature films. In my work, I consistently exercise what the surrealists call the “universality of expression”. There is only one poetry. But there are many means one can use to capture it. Besides making films, I have never stopped drawing, writing, making collages, graphics, ceramics, assembling various objects and experimenting with touch – that is the regeneration of imagination with, so-called, free creative work. It is thanks to my unrelenting infantilism that I am still able to do these things at my age.’
Is the stop-motion animation from which you made your name still economically feasible?
‘I have always ignored economic standpoints. Unfortunately, they do not ignore me.’
Another director who draws creativity from the subconscious is David Lynch. Are you a fan?
‘David Lynch is one of few contemporary film directors whose work I am familiar with and which I want to be familiar with. We fish in the same pond.’
Do you have any advice for our readers of practical ways to have potent, meaningful dreams?
‘The advice is to have impossible wishes and insist on their coming true.’
Read the review here.
Guardian Review: 5/12/11
Surreal, grotesque and censor-baiting, Jan Svankmajer's films have been getting him into trouble for years. Jonathan Jones meets him in Prague.
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